Thursday, August 20, 2015

'Americans Watch Father Ted for the First Time'

Apparently BuzzFeed produces about 75 video clips a week. It's clearly a bit of a scattergun approach, but it means that they produce things that will resonate with lots of different people in different ways, and also that they understand that with content there is a point of diminishing marginal returns in production cost.

(Diminishing marginal returns is an economics phrase that essentially means that after a certain point the amount by which you enjoy something, or something gets better, starts to decline at a certain point. My economics teacher at school taught it by telling us to imagine eating chocolate bars - first one great, second one great, 3rd one great, 4th one - good, 5th one - you're starting to get a bit sick of eating chocolate, and so on)

It looks like BuzzFeed made this video pretty cheaply. 3 couples, one laptop, one camera, no script, some clips of the show probably free under 'fair usage' rules, and a bit of editing. They could have used multiple cameras, a nicer set and so on, but it wouldn't have made it a great deal better. The idea was great, it was well presented, didn't last too long, and has had over 600,000 views in a couple of days. They just did it and got it out there.

They can also replicate it very cheaply with Mrs Brown's Boys, Only Fools & Horses, One Foot In The Grave, Phoenix Nights, Dick Emery... (They've actually done one for Geordie Shore...) Or show Brits lots of shows that didn't make it over here on a large channel.

(In fact they now have 114 videos called For the First Time including Moms Play Minecraft For The First Time, and Indians Try Baseball For The First Time)

I think BuzzFeed are going to do quite well at this whole viral video thing.